The Central Tibetan Administration is a non-profit political organization based in Dharamshala, India. Its organization is modeled after an elective parliamentary government, composed of a judiciary branch, a legislative branch, and an executive branch, and is sometimes labelled as a government in exile for Tibet.
The Tibetan independence movement is the political movement advocating for the reversal of the 1950 annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, and the separation and independence of Tibet from China.
Jetsun Pema is the sister of the 14th Dalai Lama. For 42 years she was the President of the Tibetan Children's Villages (TCV) school system for Tibetan refugee students.
The Seventeen Point Agreement, officially the Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, was a document pertaining to the status of Tibet within the People's Republic of China. It was signed by plenipotentiaries of the Central People's Government and the Tibetan government on 23 May 1951, in Zhongnanhai, Beijing. The 14th Dalai Lama ratified the agreement in the form of a telegraph on 24 October 1951.
The Tibetan sovereignty debate refers to two political debates. The first political debate is about whether or not the various territories which are within the People's Republic of China (PRC) that are claimed as political Tibet should separate themselves from China and become a new sovereign state. Many of the points in this political debate rest on the points which are within the second historical debate, about whether Tibet was independent or subordinate to China during certain periods of its recent history.
The history of Tibet from 1950 to the present includes the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, and the Battle of Chamdo. Before then, Tibet had been a de facto independent nation. In 1951, Tibetan representatives in Beijing signed the Seventeen Point Agreement under duress, which affirmed China's sovereignty over Tibet while it simultaneously supported the establishment of an autonomous administration which would be led by Tibet's spiritual leader, and then-political leader, the 14th Dalai Lama. During the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when Tibetans attempted to prevent his possible assassination, the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet and moved to northern India, where he established the Central Tibetan Administration, which rescinded the Seventeen Point Agreement. The majority of Tibet's land mass, including all of U-Tsang and areas of Kham and Amdo, was officially established as the Tibet Autonomous Region, within China, in 1965.
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme was a Tibetan senior official who assumed various military and political responsibilities both before and after 1951 in Tibet. He is often known simply as Ngapo in English sources.
Jamyang Norbu is a Tibetan political activist and writer, currently living in the United States, having previously lived for over 40 years as a Tibetan exile in India.
The 1959 Tibetan uprising began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since the Seventeen Point Agreement was reached in 1951. The initial uprising occurred amid general Chinese-Tibetan tensions and a context of confusion, because Tibetan protesters feared that the Chinese government might arrest the 14th Dalai Lama. The protests were also fueled by anti-Chinese sentiment and separatism. At first, the uprising mostly consisted of peaceful protests, but clashes quickly erupted and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) eventually used force to quell the protests, some of the protesters had captured arms. The last stages of the uprising included heavy fighting, with high civilian and military losses. The 14th Dalai Lama escaped from Lhasa, while the city was fully retaken by Chinese security forces on 23 March 1959. Thousands of Tibetans were killed during the 1959 uprising, but the exact number of deaths is disputed.
The Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) is an international non-governmental organization that advocates the independence of Tibet from China. With around 30,000 members in the Tibetan diaspora, it is the largest of the pro-independence organizations of Tibetan exiles with 87 branches in 10 countries listed on the organisation's website. The current president of the Tibetan Youth Congress is Gonpo Dhundup.
The 14th Dalai Lama, known to the Tibetan people as Gyalwa Rinpoche, is, as the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibet. He is considered a living Bodhisattva; specifically, an emanation of Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit, and Chenrezig in Tibetan. He is also the leader and a monk of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, formally headed by the Ganden Tripa. The central government of Tibet, the Ganden Phodrang, invested the Dalai Lama with temporal duties until his exile in 1959.
Lobsang Sangay is a Tibetan-American politician in exile who was Kalon Tripa of the Tibetan Administration in India from 2011 to 2012, and Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration in India from 2012 to 2021.
The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside Tibet.
Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari Rinpoche, Kasur Lodi Gyari or "as he is universally known to the Tibetan-speaking world, Gyari Rinpoche" was a Tibetan politician, and journalist who served as the 14th Dalai Lama's special envoy to the United States. Exiled to India in 1959, he was also the executive chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet.
Protests and uprisings in Tibet against the government of the People's Republic of China have occurred since 1950, and include the 1959 uprising, the 2008 uprising, and the subsequent self-immolation protests.
Secession in China refers to several secessionist movements in the People's Republic of China. Many current separatist movements in China arise from the country's ethnic issues. Some of the factors that have created these ethnic issues include history, nationalism, economic and political disparity, religion, and other factors. China has historically had tensions between the majority Han and other minority ethnic groups, particularly in rural and border regions. Historically, other ruling ethnicities, such as the Manchu of the early-Qing dynasty, experienced ethnic issues as well.
Lobsang Nyandak, sometimes written Lobsang Nyendak also called Lobsang Nyandak Zayul is a Tibetan diplomat and politician. born in 1965 in Kalimpong, India where he performed his studies in Herbertpur and at Panjab University in Chandigarh. There, he held functions at Tibetan Youth Congress before becoming the founding Executive Director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. Member of the National Democratic Party of Tibet, he was elected deputy and was selected as a minister by Samdhong Rinpoche, the first elected Kalon Tripa of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). He then was the Representative of the 14th Dalai Lama to the Americas and became president of The Tibet Fund.
The Tibet Policy Institute (TPI), founded in 2012, is a Tibetan think tank and research-oriented intellectual institute of the Central Tibetan Administration. TPI is based in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India.
The Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People provides a framework for the governance of Tibet within the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 2008 a group led by the Dalai Lama presented the memorandum to China. Beijing invited Dalai Lama's delegation to talk about his middle path, which promoted autonomy rather than full independence. Beijing rejected the proposal vehemently, claiming that it was as good as giving independence to Tibet. Following the presentation of the Memorandum, talks between China and Dalai Lama's envoys that had started in 2002 broke down. The last communication was in January 2010.
In March 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama escaped from China, together with members of his family and his government. They fled the Chinese authorities, who were suspected of wanting to detain him. From Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, the Dalai Lama and his entourage travelled southwards to Tawang in India, where he was welcomed by the Indian authorities.
